Evening scan of the neighborhood

January 5, 2010

Tuesday evening I took a different approach and made a walk of my neighborhood. In the past I’ve seen a few interesting things like opossum, a raccoon and blue jays. However, initially I couldn’t find much more than Eastern Gray Squirrels (Sciurus carolinensis).

In Alexandria, photographing squirrels is like shooting fish in a barrel, but I spent a little time shooting a few that were darting around.

After looping through a few blocks, I began to see a number of robins. Overhead, there were also a significant number of other birds passing through the area.

Light conditions were becoming increasingly poor as the sun dropped lower and I didn’t even make an attempt on the robins. In Harrisonburg, I had the best luck with robins in the JMU arboretum, but urban environments aren’t nearly as conducive to a good vantage point.

I passed a few more fearful squirrels before eventually making my way back home.

Now that I think about it, I’ve done pretty well locally in the rodent department. I’ve seen squirrels, chipmunks, rats, mice and a beaver. What else could a guy ask for?

In the future on these types of walks, I would love to get some decent shots of blue jays. If you’ve been following this site for a while, they were my sworn enemies during the last book project and had a knack for toying with me. In Alexandria, I’ve already had many close encounters with blue jays, but haven’t been able to capture their image (yet). They seem to have left the area once it got cold. I think that’s a little curious because that wasn’t the case in Harrisonburg.

Welcome

Photographer Evan Dyson established this site to highlight work being done toward the wildlife book, Wildlife: A Photographic Record of the Shenandoah Valley, as well as other wildlife projects. The previous title is now available for ordering, and features a variety of images taken in Virginia, in locations including Harrisonburg, Skyline Drive and Shenandoah National Park.

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